MCA: Black Summer Laboratory for Understanding Mixed-phase Cloud Aerosol Effects over the Southern Ocean

Understanding how smoke particles and lofted dust from events like the 2019-2020 Black Summer fires in Australia interact with clouds is incredibly important for all of us. These interactions have an impact on our weather and climate, affecting things like how clouds form, where and when it rains, and even how air moves around in our atmosphere. By understanding these processes better, scientists and policymakers can make smarter decisions to protect our health, improve air quality, and prepare for future wildfires. This research also helps us build more accurate predictions of our current climate and climate change, which is crucial for developing effective strategies to safeguard our planet for future generations. So, studying aerosol-cloud interactions after events like Black Summer is not just about science—it is about finding ways to keep our environment and communities safe and healthy. Aerosol-Cloud Interactions (ACI) are the largest source of uncertainty in global climate models. Reducing uncertainty in ACI is critical for constraining the forcing and feedbacks that combine to change the earth’s climate. By isolating a natural aerosol perturbation event, “Black Summer,” this project will be able to integrate observations, simulated aerosol emissions, and transport patterns over the Southern High Latitudes. This project will leverage this event to better constrain process-level understanding of aerosol cloud microphysics relevant for Southern Ocean (SO) mixed phase clouds and develop a thorough understanding of background and perturbed SO aerosol regimes. Simulated and satellite cloud properties from the “Black Summer” event will also allow the investigation of cloud activation and ice nucleation impacts of biomass burning aerosol on SO cloud properties. This process-oriented study addresses the importance of SO clouds on the climate system and the complex nature of the aerosol-cloud-precipitation processes. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.